others they do not seem so; and to see things beautiful is to see
truth.”
None of the children disputed this much-disputed fact—for to youth it
is obvious—so I myself had to answer the objections. I said: “One might
say that in life many things are ugly, and these things are true,
therefore to see these things as beautiful is not to see them truly. But
we believe that the whole universe, altogether, could we know it, would
be harmonious and beautiful; therefore to see things as beautiful is to
see them in relation to that truth, and as symbols of that truth.”
Marian said: “We must believe that the whole universe is harmonious;
anything else is unthinkable. We feel it in ourselves.”
“You mean, because we have the laws of harmony in our own nature?”
“Yes. The whole must be harmonious.”
We spoke of instances in which ugly things could be seen as beautiful.
The empty lot across the street, with its boards, rubbish and shanties,
is ugly; but at times, under certain conditions, and by shutting out a
part with my hand, I see it as a beautiful wild landscape.
Marian said: “Near us are some poor, ugly houses, that I hate to see;
but sometimes I see little children at the windows, who are so sweet and
graceful they make the houses look beautiful.”
“There are a great many pictures,” said Virginia, “but I think there is
not much art. Do you?”
“No,” I said. “To be a painter does not make one an artist. Do you
remember hearing people make the criticism that a picture was pretty,
but not beautiful? Prettiness in art is a sad fault, one that perhaps
you, too, have found. But do you know just what it is?”
Virginia said she had often seen pictures that were just pretty, without
character.
I said: “When a painter makes pictures to please the taste of people
whose taste he does not respect, when a would-be artist works to catch
applause or money from the crowd by satisfying their bad taste, and does
not even believe in the love of truth and beauty which sleeps in them
all, then the thing he paints is usually pretty. He will paint a little
child with a kitten in her lap, because that is a pretty subject, but it
will be the most affected child and the posiest kitten!”
“It is superficial,” they said.
“Yes, for he does not know the true character of those for whom he
works, nor care to know his subject. The smirking advertisements one
sees are a good example of prettiness. But many artists, working for
money alone, fall into this cheap, easy habit of pleasing the worst
taste.”
“Wouldn’t you call ‘The Vicar of Wakefield’ a pretty book?” asked Henry.
“No, indeed,” I answered; “it is far too genuine and lifelike to be
merely pretty.”
Henry insisted it was written for money, and was merely sweet and
pleasing. The others disagreed with him so strenuously, I had hardly a
chance to say, as before, that one might write for money the thing
needful to be said. Virginia asked whether I did not think Jessie Wilcox
Smith’s drawings merely pretty? I said I thought them so now and then,
but that sometimes her deep love and understanding of childhood made
them shine with loveliness.
Marian said: “Some people are merely pretty and uninteresting.”
“Often,” I answered, “they want just that. They look for superficial
admiration, and show only their superficial prettiness.”
“But, of course, that isn’t art,” said Marian.
“Sometimes it is,” answered Florence.
I spoke of sculpture as the Greek drama of visual art, a metaphor that
appealed to those of them—Florence, Marian, Henry—who knew enough of
Greek drama, with its masks and buskins, and its far-offness, to
understand. The distance, the unlifelikeness of the material, is its
charm. The colored German marbles lose artistic beauty in gaining
lifelike color.
“In that case,” said Alfred, “I should think the process of coloring and
the newness of the material would interest one so much as to draw one’s
attention away from the statue.”
“I don’t think it is only that,” I answered; “for surely wax works,
which are quite common, with all their lifelike color and softness, do
not give us the thrill of reality and beauty that we get from a marble
statue.”
“I think,” said Henry, “it is just the coldness and hardness of marble,
changed by the artist into shapes of life and warmth, that make it
beautiful.”
“Yes,” I said, “exactly. The sculptor expresses his idea in every curve
of the human form, and makes human shapes say universal things. They
express by attitude and line power, beauty, tenderness. In the
‘Mercury,’ the lines of that headlong figure, to half-shut eyes,
represent the curve and angle of flight itself.”
Virginia now spoke of Michael Angelo, and his misdrawing of figures,
which are none the less beautiful and powerful. I said he was so great a
genius that his genius, as often happens, overshadowed his shortcomings
as a craftsman.
Here we came, I know not how, on the subject of drama. I said that to me
it could never seem a perfect form of art—that is, the acted
drama—because the actors usually obtruded their personality, and so
broke in on the unity of expression—the creation of one mind—necessary
to art. But the children, better at the art of looking on than I, and
not so quick to note the significance of personality, said they forgot
entirely the actors themselves, and felt as though the thing were a
piece of life. Virginia and Florence said they felt as if they were
the author, as if by being spectators they took part, and Virginia said
she always did hate the villains!
Of architecture we observed that it appealed directly to the emotions,
like music; that it made us feel, we knew not why, glad or sad, or calm
or overawed. Virginia spoke of the Palais de Justice in Brussels, which
made her feel very tiny; and this naturally brought us to speak of the
feeling of reverence and awe.
“Whenever we feel small,” I said, “and see another thing as vast, that
vastness is in our minds, it is our own immense other self which
overawes us.”
They said they did not know what the feeling was. Virginia said: “When I
have it, if I try to think of what it is, it is already gone. But the
next time I see the same thing, perhaps some beautiful picture, that
feeling is there again.”
Virginia and Florence said they never had any reverence for particular
people, because they were older, for instance. But, I said, at least
they must have reverence for people, as such, for the self in all
people. They granted that.
We spoke of the completeness of that architecture which showed outwardly
its inner use, and the spirit of its land and people; of distinctly
American problems, the skyscraper, the selfishness of New York builders,
who did not consider the beauty of the whole city, and so wrought
ugliness. The children gave examples, and did not agree with me
altogether, Henry saying that a railroad station built like a Roman
temple made you feel like travelling more than did the gloomy Grand
Central. When he asked me how about the banks built like Greek temples,
I said that might be more appropriate, since some of us did worship
money!
He spoke of the library at Washington as fitting exactly to its use; its
big, comfortable rooms made one feel like studying and reading all the
day.
“I wonder if anything could make me feel like that!” said Virginia.
When the others had left, I took a walk with Alfred. He said: “I didn’t
exactly understand what you meant by my being big when I feel little.”
“I meant,” I said, “that when you feel awe before the immensity of the
universe, under the stars, or by the sea, the thought of immensity is in
yourself, and it is really yourself who become immense. You realize your
whole self. And before that realization your daily life and thoughts and
your own small self seem very tiny. It is one part of yourself, the
small part, standing in awe and wonder before that other immense self.”
He understood that.
I went on: “I only mentioned it to-day, and did not expect you to
understand. I often do this, either to give a suggestion for the next
week, or else to see what really interests you.”
“I think it is a good idea,” he said.
TENTH MEETING
Virginia could not come. We did have six present, however, as we had a
visitor, Leo, a boy of sixteen.
Ruth brought with her a box of candy, given her by a sympathetic aunt,
who has an opinion, I surmise, of our club. They all assured me that
candy would not disturb their thoughts. Marian said: “There’s nothing I
can’t do, and eat candy at the same time.” I do, myself, think it was an
improvement. We had a lively and interesting meeting, and much
sweetness.
Marian wrote a paper on our meeting of two weeks past, following the
notes I had made for Florence to use in her talk with Henry. It lacked
Marian’s usual originality, as it was built directly on my thought. She
even used one phrase of mine, word for word, namely: “Life proves all
things by creative action.”
“Why did you use it?” I asked.
“Because,” she said, “I didn’t understand what it meant, and I wanted to
ask you.”
“I am glad,” I said, “for it is a thing of which I meant to speak
to-day. All action is creation and self-expression; everything is
changing and in action all the time, because it is striving to come into
better relation with all other things. All art and all life is
self-expression and action at every moment. We must create if we would
be complete. That is why I love the active and creative life.”
“Yes,” said Marian, “I understand. You had told us so before. But I
didn’t know it was what you meant by that sentence.”
Now I read Marian’s paper for this week:
“On December 6th the Seekers held a meeting, in which we continued our
discussion on Art. We first considered the subject of Art in Poetry.
Poetry differs from prose in two essential respects, namely, it is
farther off, and it expresses the emotions, and does so in a musical
form. Our standard for Art applies in poetry, as well as in other
things. In connection with poetry we took up the subject of controversy
in art, and especially in poetry. We decided that a controversial poem,
or novel, is not good art because it is one-sided and incomplete. If a
man writes on one side of a question he cannot be really in that
sympathetic frame of mind that is necessary for the production of a good
piece of art. We next took up art in music, and decided that music is
the most complete or artistic of all arts, because it is farthest off,
and expresses most completely our ideal. We also considered sculpture,
and noted the fact that the sculpture is the expression in human form of
the sculptor’s ideas. We also considered painting, and after we had
again applied our standard, Miss Sampter told us that every picture has
a central object or figure, the figure of most importance; that all the
lines of the picture are direct toward it; and that in every good
painting there must be contrast, and all the primary colors must be in
it. It is complete in every way. All the colors, light and shade, and
the idea of the painter well worked out, complete it. We considered,
besides, the subject of architecture, and said that a building should in
some measure express the purpose for which it was to be used.”
Ruth said she understood all this, and could gather something of our
last meeting. She did not quite see what was meant by a thing in art
being “far off.” Henry told her it meant that though removed from
reason, and not clearly defined or lifelike, it appealed to our
sympathies and emotions, and we understood it all the better. Then I
read Henry’s paper:
“In poetry and music, as in all the other arts, it is completeness,
complete harmony, which makes a thing beautiful. Of all the arts the
most beautiful is music. Harmony is everything in music, and is the
principal in musical composition. A piece of music always closes with
the first note of the scale, thus completing the chord. If it were
otherwise we would say there was something lacking. The phrase itself
shows us that what we want is completeness, though few people stop to
think of its full meaning when they use it.
“We have said that the farther away we are from something, the more
beautiful it seems. This is true of music, which, besides being the most
beautiful of arts, is the farthest away, for we cannot say anything
definite with it, but must leave so much to the sympathy of the
listeners. I like to think of this as a symbol of the beautiful
completeness we hope to realize some far-distant day, and that then
there will be something still more beautiful, that we shall know in
times still farther off.”
I thought this an excellent paper, and I told Henry so. I said I was
glad he had written more of musical composition than I had been able to
tell him.
We spoke of some of our past meetings. Florence said: “I couldn’t make
Henry see the difference between wit and humor.”
“I see it now,” he answered. “We discussed it in school.”
“So did we,” said Marian. “Isn’t it queer?”
They had been taking up drama, too, and so their club and school work
harmonized.
I said: “You have heard people speak of the art of life. To me it seems
that to make an art of life, to live it as if it were our creation, our
work of art, is the best way, the most complete and beautiful way. You
remember, I spoke to you of the three ways of looking at life, of
writing books, for instance: The scientific way, the philosophic way,
the artistic way. One can live life in these three ways, too; but to me
the artistic way seems best.”
“Don’t you think,” asked Marian, “that if we lived as an art, we should
be too apt to excuse ourselves?”
“How do you mean, Marian?”
“Because,” she went on, “we should admit the shadows in life as well as
the light.”
“The shadows,” I answered, “are not the wrong, the bad. How can you
think so? Are shadows in a picture the mistakes in it? Shadows make the
rhythm and the contrast; and in life would be repose and sleep. That
necessary pulsation of activity and rest alone can make life whole and
perfect.”
“I see,” said Marian, “that is true.”
“As for blaming ourselves for things past, I think it is silly to do
so.”
“What,” they asked, “is the scientific way of life?”
“It is,” I answered, “living according to small definite truths, knowing
certain separate things to be good or bad for us, and living according
to that knowledge, without any general aim of life. It is to bathe
regularly, to tell the truth carefully, to be honest, to look out for
your neighbor, always because each one of these things is expedient in
itself. The philosophic way is to see the final, complete good, and to
want that once, to lose yourself and the beauty of your own life in the
desperate effort to make the whole world perfect now. Suppose, for
instance, that on Christmas a starving family came to the door of a
middle-class man for food. If he were a scientist in his life he would
send the poor family at once to the public food kitchen, with a ticket
of recommendation, because he did not believe in indiscriminate charity
and pauperism. If he were a philosopher he would be horrified at the
idea of any man lacking a dinner, and without further thought would give
his whole dinner to the poor, and go without, and let his children go
without. That is just what Bronson Alcott did—the typical philosopher
in life—who neglected his own family for the good of the universe.”
“I have often known of people,” said Henry, “who went out to do charity
and neglected their families.”
“Yes,” I said, “but that is sometimes for still worse reasons. Now what
would the artist in life do? He would be full of the delight of
Christmas feeling; and he would either share his dinner with the other
man—according to circumstances—or ask him in to his table, if the poor
children were not too dirty. He would look out for himself and for the
other man, and do it gracefully, beautifully. He knows that first of all
he must make his own life sane and beautiful, but he wants to include as
many other lives as he can in that life of his, and to make all his
relations with men beautiful.”
“What you call the philosophic way,” said Ruth, “is what I had always
called the artistic way.”
“That is,” I said, “because you have all of you had a ridiculous, false
idea of what the artist is. The scientific life is the life according to
particular truths, without an aim. The philosophic life is the life
dreaming of supreme good, and neglecting the particular, individual
beauty of life.”
“But doesn’t the philosophic way help toward that good?” asked Henry.
“Yes,” I said, “though often it tries only impracticable schemes. The
artistic way combines and transcends the two. For the artist must have
knowledge of facts, must know science, and must love supreme good, as
well. Facts according to the supreme good, life made beautiful to be
like completeness, that is the artistic life. It includes both the
scientific and the philosophic.”
“It is as it were the middle way?” asked Ruth.
“Yes,” I said, “because beauty includes all extremes.”
Henry remarked: “It may be the best way, but I wouldn’t guarantee to
live according to it.”
I smiled. “You mean,” I said, “that you didn’t like the idea of asking
the poor man in to dinner?” He assented. “But you misunderstood me. That
was only a picture, a story, not a law. If we make large laws for
life—such laws as those of art—we shall avoid petty moralizing, which
I, for one, detest. We shall see that every circumstance alters the
case.
“It’s just this petty moralizing that is unnecessary, when one has big
laws and standards which he can use in life, each for himself.”
We did come very near having a discussion on truth-telling, but I
stopped it at once. I was glad to discover, however, that Ruth is not a
stickler for literal truth under all circumstances.
“I don’t like little laws laid down,” I said, “because they are never
true and necessary in all cases. They make me feel rebellious.”
“Yes,” said Marian, “they make one feel contrary, and want to do just
the opposite.”
I spoke of the undeniable fact that all great action, all history sprang
from imaginative thought, that a deed had to be imagined before it could
be done, that all history was inspired by the bards and prophets. I
spoke of even such scientific theories as evolution springing from
imaginative thought. They all seemed to have realized this before, and
none dissented. I read to them O’Shawnessy’s Ode, “We are the
Music-makers.”
Florence said: “We spoke of the thinker’s influence lately, at home. But
I always thought of those great men, not as poets, but as philosophers.”
“Yes,” I answered, “they often were. But they were poets, too. The
greatest artist—as I showed you—is a scientist and philosopher as
well. Goethe to me seems the best example of such a complete man. His
life was so many-sided, and yet so artistic, so definite in its aim; it
might stand as an example of the artistic life.”
Now, what the children seemed to know of Goethe was that he had a great
many love affairs, and did not behave well in any of them. Marian and
Henry had a clearer idea, and knew this was not the whole or the chief
part of his life, nor quite so faulty as represented. Henry said: “He
could appreciate the good points in a woman without always falling in
love with her.”
When Ruth said she didn’t know anything of Goethe but his lover’s
weakness, Marian turned on her with: “Now, isn’t it a shame to know that
of him, and nothing else!”
I told them again that as every work of art was a symbol of
completeness, so every self, being a self, symbolized the complete self
of understanding and unity; every man was a symbol of completeness, of
the Divine Self.
Before we went on to enumerate for ourselves the laws of art, now that
we all agreed they would be one with the laws of life, I wished to read
aloud some slips from a Ruskin calendar, which Ruth had brought me two
weeks before. The most fruitful of conversation were the following:
“All are to be men of genius in their degree—rivulets or rivers, it
does not matter, so that the souls be clear and pure.”
This, they said, was exactly our idea of genius in all.
“Good work is never done for hatred, any more than for hire—but for
love only.”
Surely, then, not for controversy, we said.
“Neither a great fact, nor a great man, nor a great poem, nor a great
picture, nor any other great thing, can be fathomed to the bottom in a
moment of time.”
“Every great man is always being helped by everybody, for his gift is to
get good out of all things and all persons.”
This, I reminded them, was what we had said when we spoke of the good
and bad, that we must use all things for good.
“The ennobling difference between one man and another—between one
animal and another—is precisely in this, that one feels more than
another.”
“Doesn’t it seem,” said Florence, “as if Ruskin had written those papers
especially for us?”
“That last one,” I said, “expresses exactly our idea; here ‘feeling’
means the same as ‘sympathy,’ or ‘feeling with.’ So you find, all
through the old books, the striving for this same truth, always vaguely
expressed, never fully understood, as an ideal, as a religion of life.”
Ruth asked: “Don’t you think all great religions have always believed in
that final unity?”
“Not quite in this way,” I answered. “They have vaguely striven for it
and implied it, but never realized it as the one meaning in life, the
moving force of the universe.”
I gave each of them a pencil and a piece of paper, and said we would
find out and write down what were the chief laws of all arts, and then
follow that written paper throughout our meetings. I said: “It looks
like a party, with the candy and the paper and pencils.”
“Yes,” said Florence; “and now we are going to play a guessing game!”
The first law upon which we decided, after some conversation, was:
1. Art is the symbol of completeness, in a definite shape.
On this last part, “in a definite shape,” I especially insisted, showing
them how the definite, the particular, the finite—the drop as opposed
to the mist—symbolized completeness. I said for them Goethe’s poem,
“Ueber allen Gipfeln,” to show them how so short, clearcut and simple a
thing gave us the sense of immensity.
Henry said he had thought at one time that if one only knew the truth,
it was not necessary to be a good orator; one had simply to state the
truth. But now he believed the form an essential part of the thought.
Marian said something of the artistic life as meaning one must have a
single aim. I answered her it might be so, but the single aim would be
immense and inclusive. Now we went on to the second law, which we
formulated thus:
2. Art is self-expression and self-fulfilment.
Self-expression means action, creation. “Thinking, writing, the work of
the artist is action,” I said. They understood. I quoted: “There is only
one gift worth giving, and that is one’s self.” “To give one’s self,” I
said, “that is action, that is life, creation and fulfilment.”
“How so fulfilment?” asked Marian.
“Because it is always fulfilment to do the thing we love to do. Now what
comes next?”
Henry said: “To leave out the distracting; to leave out detail.”
“Not necessarily detail,” I answered; “certain definite details are
essential.”
They said to leave out the irrelevant, the inharmonious, the
unnecessary. I said:
3. To leave out the unimportant.
“Can you see,” I asked, “how that will apply to life?”
4. Must have variety and many-sidedness.
That is, contrast, rhythm, the all-roundness which makes the whole.
We had just begun to speak of the next law when I was called from the
room.
As I returned, Henry said to me: “Well, then, let us write down: ‘must
not be for or against.’”
So they had formulated it while I was away. I answered: “Rather let us
use the word ‘partisan,’ which means part, not whole.”
5. Must not be partisan, and must be sympathetic.
Now, I said, art,
6. Must give the impression of truth.
I did not linger on this point, and was glad the children accepted it
without question, for I wanted more time to explain it.